1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometric toxic gas monitor system, and associated method of detecting toxic gas species in an environment containing or susceptible to the presence of same, such as a gaseous effluent stream produced from a semiconductor manufacturing operation, or a clean room gaseous environment or an industrial processing facility in which air quality is monitored for the presence of toxic gas components therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
In any spectroscopic technique, such as FTIR, for monitoring a fluid environment for the presence of toxic components, the quality of the background spectrum is important.
Such background spectral quality is particularly critical for reliable operation of a toxic gas monitor, which is provided to operate continuously in an unattended manner.
Continuous measurement of the quality of the background spectrum during gas monitoring, in addition to facilitating continuous, unattended operational reliability, also enables the monitoring system to be operated so that a user or operator can be alerted of the need for system maintenance before problems such as false positive alarms occur.
In addition to deficiencies of background spectrum monitoring that are characteristic of conventional FTIR toxic gas monitoring systems, as lacking effective and reliable background monitoring capability, typical problems involving FTIR toxic gas monitoring systems include contamination of optical components such as mirrors or windows, noisy spectra and weak IR source intensity.